Ignition
by Semebay
Summary: Firefighter!Alfred AU. The first meeting, or, how the firefighter and the teacher came to be together. Some language.


Alfred rocked back on his heels and played with the card in his hand. The line in the Starbucks was painfully slow, and he had been waiting to get to the counter for at least ten minutes. It looked like they had brought in a new girl to train. While Alfred was all for more people learning how to make the perfect coffee, he would have preferred they not train the newbies at lunch time on a Saturday. Only three people had gotten their orders through and because they were training the new girl, they didn't have someone to man the other register.

Alfred checked his watch. He didn't actually pay attention to the time, but did it solely for the gesture. He had plenty of time to stand in line waiting for his coffee, but he enjoyed having his coffee at the park. With how slow the line was, he would probably have to cut short his time at the park so that he could make it back to the station.

Alfred restrained a cheer when the next person in line was served, and he took a step forward. One step closer to his coffee, though it was quickly becoming obvious that he would probably have to cut short his time in the park.

Alfred checked his watch again. Another three minutes before he could take another step.

Alfred hummed and looked around. Every table by the windows was occupied by people on laptops, and most of them wore glasses. There were more tables that lined the back of the café, occupied by people with more laptops except for two people that sat near the bathrooms. One was reading a book, and the other was surrounded by stacks of folders and empty ceramic mugs.

Alfred took another step when the line moved again, and his attention turned back to the girl being trained. She was trying her hardest to keep up with the order being given to her, but the man ordering it didn't seem to care that he was going too fast or that she was inexperienced. She asked him to repeat his order twice, and each time he snapped at her and told her to pay attention.

"You don't have to be a dick about it," Alfred called out, and the entire line of people looked back at him. He had also gained the attention of the people around the store (he hadn't realized exactly how loudly he had called out), and the man surrounded by folders glanced up at him.

"Excuse me?" the man at the counter sneered, and Alfred stared at him.

"You heard me. She's new here and she's still learning. Don't be a dick."

The man narrowed his eyes and pounded his fist on the counter. The girl jumped at the motion. "It's her responsibility to work as quickly as possible to serve me. Bug off."

"And it's your responsibility as a customer to be nice and let her do her job. Get over yourself, asshole." Alfred probably shouldn't have cursed, but it wasn't as though he was wrong. The guy was a total asshole and from the way he nodded his head and checked Alfred out, he was probably wondering if he would be able to take him on in a fight (he definitely couldn't. Not when Alfred spent days slinging around hundreds of pounds of hoses and equipments, and it looked like the guy in front of him was a desk jockey that never went outside except to grab his caffeine fix at Starbucks).

"Do you have any idea who I am?" the man demanded, and Alfred mentally put a check next to "desk jockey."

"Nope." Alfred grinned and was prepared to take whatever insult the guy could throw at him, except that the manager had appeared and inserted herself into the confrontation.

"Sir, I have to ask you to leave."

Alfred didn't catch much of what was said. The manager spoke with the other man and ignored his arguing and curses, and while the rest of the café was stuck on the pair, Alfred had turned to look at the man that was surrounded by folders. He hadn't stopped making notes on the papers before him with a red pen, but he _had _glanced up every so often to watch what was going on. When he realized that Alfred was watching him, he offered a small smile and motioned to the man being led from the store with his pen.

Once the man had been removed from the store, everyone went back to what they had been doing before. No one paid much mind to Alfred except the one man that had made eye contact with him. Alfred didn't mind the lack of attention, and when he realized that the second register had opened and the lines moved faster, he was almost annoyed by it. He was rather interested by the man that had continued making hand motions at him (they had traded a thumbs up and a couple silent laughs from across the room, though the stranger made his motions as subtle as possible), and he really wasn't interested in ending their silent conversation.

"Can I take your order?" the girl from before asked when Alfred finally reached the counter. Her cheerfulness tore him from the stranger and he smiled at her. She had a finger poised over the register and waited for him to speak. Her eyes were slightly red, and though she looked relaxed she was obviously still shaken from the man before.

"I want a hazelnut coffee in your biggest cup. Extra cream and sugar."

The girl nodded and looked down at the register. She hesitated before pressing a few buttons, and then she looked back up at him. "Anything else?"

"Boston Cream Donut." Alfred looked at the racks of food behind her. "And a… a Danish."

The girl nodded once more and tapped the buttons on the register. A worker behind her moved to prepare the coffee while the girl grabbed the food, and Alfred pulled money out of his pocket while he waited for her return.

"Thanks," Alfred said when he was handed his coffee, and he opened the top to take a sip. The girl returned with a small paper bag and set it on the counter before him. When Alfred held out the money, she waved a hand.

"The manager said it's on the house," she told him, then hurried to continue. "I mean, I would've… Thank you." She grinned at him. "For before."

Alfred chuckled and returned the cash to his pocket. He pulled out a ten in its place and slipped it into the tip jar. "We're not all like that in here."

"Ah, thank you!" The girl reached out with a hand as though to shake his, but then she quickly pulled it back. She didn't seem to know what she was supposed to do, and Alfred grabbed the bag with his coffee.

"Don't worry about it. Have an awesome day."

Alfred walked away from the counter, but he didn't bother leaving the store. Instead he walked over to the man surrounded by stacks of folders and waited for him to look up. Once they were looking at each other, Alfred thrust out his hand.

"Name's Alfred. Nice to meet you."

The man carefully set down his pen and raised his hand to take Alfred's. "Arthur."

Alfred smiled and pulled out the chair before him so that he could sit. Arthur looked caught, as though he had expected the action but not really, and Alfred sat.

"Danish?"

"English," Arthur corrected him, but he then realized that Alfred was pushing the small bag towards him across the table. He nodded and said his thanks, carefully pushing a stack of papers aside so that he wouldn't get crumbs on them.

"So how'd I do?" Alfred jerked his thumb over his shoulder at the register and Arthur raised an eyebrow in amusement.

"Excuse me?"

"Up there. With that idiot." Alfred dropped his hand back down to the table and opened the other small bag so that he could pull out his Boston Crème. "How'd I do?"

Arthur carefully slipped the Danish from the bag and nodded thoughtfully. "I think you did quite well. It was rather… _impressive_."

Alfred nodded his head and took a bite of his donut while Arthur picked pieces off of his Danish. He watched him eat and tried to think of how to approach the subject he _really_ wanted to talk about.

"Impressive enough to go on a walk or something later?"

Arthur had just popped a piece of Danish in his mouth, giving him a moment to go over Alfred's conveniently timed question. He swallowed and nodded, but then looked pointedly at the stacks of folders and papers around him.

"Awesome!" Alfred grabbed the pen Arthur had put down and wrote his number down on a napkin. "And I have to go to work in a bit, so I guess it worked out okay. With you doing work, too and all." He stared at the napkin for a moment and took another bite of his Boston Cream. "Are you free Sunday?"

Arthur nodded and wiped his fingers on a napkin. "Sunday sounds lovely. Where should I meet you?" He took his pen back from Alfred and tore his number from the napkin. Then he wrote his own number on the piece left over.

"There's that park outside town. Vega Woods. There're some nice trails on the river. We can go 'round noon..?"

"Sounds nice." Arthur thought for a moment and tried to recall where the park was. "The parking lot is by that Wendy's, isn't it?"

"Yep!" Alfred's pager started beeping and he pulled it quickly from his belt. "Listen, sorry I have to run. Duty calls!" He took the napkin with Arthur's name on it and nodded. "This was a pretty awesome first meeting, right? Too bad it went so fast!"

"Not a problem," Arthur said, though he looked rather surprised by Alfred's sudden departure.

Though really, considering they had met in a coffee shop and made a date within ten minutes of meeting, it shouldn't have been that much of a surprise.

* * *

><p>"Al, get that woman out of here!"<p>

Alfred looked back at a reporter that was sneaking around the corner of one of the trucks. He walked back and quickly placed himself in front of her, easily lifting the camera out of her hands and going through the pictures.

"Hey!" she shouted, but he held it above her head while he went through and deleted images.

"This is an accident, not a peep show. No pictures." Alfred turned the camera off and handed it back to her, then took her shoulder to guide her away.

"Just one picture," the woman demanded, but Alfred shook his head. Sadly, she wasn't deterred. "How about an interview? You get to be in the paper!"

"Not happening." Alfred pulled up the police tape that crossed the road and pushed her outside the perimeter. An officer took Alfred's place and let him return to the scene.

The firefighter that had spoken before, a man by the name of John, shook his head. "One of these days you're going to get in trouble for that."

Alfred shrugged. "People're hurt. What right do those sharks have to take their pictures to show the world?"

John sighed and watched while the last flames in the engine of the car were extinguished. "Try not to get sued. Please."

"You really think they'd have a case against me for protecting someone's dignity?" Alfred moved aside when an EMT walked past him with a small pocketbook pulled from the vehicle. Usually they didn't bother with finding personal effects at accident scenes, but the victim had been conscious enough to say something about medication after he had been pulled from the flaming wreckage.

"I pity the cop," John said, and Alfred looked back. The reporter was shouting and pointing towards Alfred, and the officer was crossing his arms and nodding his head.

Alfred looked away. "You know the time?"

John pushed his sleeve up to check his watch. "Eleven-fifty."

Alfred cursed. "Is there a phone in the truck? I was supposed to meet someone at twelve."

"I think Ed's cell is on the front seat." John walked toward the accident. An ambulance drove past them just as the emergency helicopter lifted into the air, and they both stopped for a moment while gusts of wind from the blades pushed them back.

Once the helicopter was gone, Alfred climbed in the truck to find the phone on the front seat. He recalled the number Arthur had given him with a bit of difficulty and dialed.

It went to voicemail.

"Oh damn. Uh, hey Arthur! This is Alfred. Sorry for this, but there was an accident that I have to take care of. I hope you get this. You don't have to wait up or anything, but I might be able to make it around two if you're still interested. Or maybe we can try again? Sorry, really."

Alfred ended the call and dropped the phone on the seat. He could see a few wreckers arriving to take away the three wrecked cars and knew that the biggest part of the cleanup was almost finished. They still had to get the smaller debris off the road and work on getting traffic through.

"So much for a first date."

* * *

><p>It was almost four when Alfred finally pulled into the parking lot at Vega Woods. He had given up hope that Arthur would be there, even though there were at least ten cars in the parking lot. He sighed and locked his car before he walked the length of the parking lot and worked his way to the trail that ran alongside the river.<p>

When Alfred finally stood on the trail and looked over the river, he wondered why the hell he had invited Arthur there in the first place. Most people went out to eat, or to see a movie. Alfred had invited some guy he had just met to take a walk in the woods (though the trail was very well maintained and more a walking path, it amounted to the same thing).

Alfred didn't even know why Arthur had agreed to go. He had looked interested when Alfred had been talking to the guy at the register, and had agreed to Alfred's request almost immediately.

Alfred wondered if the interest that Arthur had shown before would last long enough so that he would give Alfred another chance.

Alfred pulled his cell phone from his pocket and clicked through the contacts.

"Took you long enough."

Alfred stopped and looked up. Arthur was sitting on a bench overlooking the river, legs crossed and hands clasped.

"You didn't get my message," Alfred groaned.

"I got it." Arthur turned away from the river to face Alfred. "I decided to wait. Of course, I didn't think it would take quite _this_ long for you to get here."

"Stuff came up."

"So I heard." Arthur held up a tiny box, and Alfred saw that it was a tiny handheld radio. He almost laughed. Most people had mp3 players. "Were you working at the accident?"

Alfred nodded. "Yeah. I'm part of the fire department." He paused and rubbed his chin. "Why'd you stay?" He laughed nervously. "Hell, why'd you agree in the first place?"

Arthur shrugged. He shifted over on the bench and motioned for Alfred to sit. "If you want to get somewhere or find someone, you have to take the first step, right? Besides. You looked interesting, and I figured it was worth the wait."

Alfred sat and saw that there was a small basket at Arthur's feet.

"So, since we know… _nothing_ about each other, I say we sit, have a bite to eat, and get to know each other. Sound good?"

Alfred nodded his head and chuckled. "Sounds awesome."


End file.
